Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
Speaker 1: and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
Speaker 1: from the arts to sports, and from business to history
Speaker 1: and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
Speaker 1: our American Stories dot com. They're truly some of our favorites.
Speaker 1: Up next a story from Brent Timmins. Today, he shares
Speaker 1: with us a story entitled balance, Take It Away.
Speaker 2: Brent Asher had left on his motorcycle for work at
Speaker 2: his summer job. He had just graduated and needed to
Speaker 2: make a quick stop at his high school to drop
Speaker 2: off his bar, laptop, and calculus calculator. Thirty minutes later,
Speaker 2: my wife answers the phone. The information she was given
Speaker 2: was brief. Asher had had a motorcycle accident in front
Speaker 2: of the school. They thought he would be okay, but
Speaker 2: the ambulance was coming and may end up taking him
Speaker 2: to the hospital. That was about the extent of the information.
Speaker 2: Both of us quickly thought the worst, like he had
Speaker 2: collided with another vehicle when either turning into the school
Speaker 2: or coming out. The wording thought he would be okay
Speaker 2: registered in my mind as non life threatening injuries. Where
Speaker 2: would they take him was the first question out of
Speaker 2: my mouth. Tina called the school right back and was
Speaker 2: told it would be Nannacoke. We wondered how we would
Speaker 2: know whether to go to the school or to head
Speaker 2: directly to the hospital. This state lasted about three minutes.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call it hysteria. It was more like a
Speaker 2: laser focus on how we were going to get to
Speaker 2: where our son was. Than Asher called, He said he
Speaker 2: was okay, described the situation and told us we just
Speaker 2: needed to come get him and his bike. We know
Speaker 2: our son well enough that this immediately put us at ease.
Speaker 2: I hooked up the trailer and we headed off. It
Speaker 2: was a relatively minor event. Asher was slowly turning into
Speaker 2: the drive of the school. They actually caught it on camera,
Speaker 2: and he hit a small patch of sand on the asphalt.
Speaker 2: The rear end slipped out in a heartbeat, and he
Speaker 2: ended up on the ground under the bike. The school
Speaker 2: staff was fabulous. They rushed to his aid immediately and
Speaker 2: watched over him in the nurse's office as he gathered
Speaker 2: his wits and the shaking from the adrenaline wore off.
Speaker 2: He had some scrapes, the bike had some scrapes, but overall,
Speaker 2: he and his bike would be fine. This is one
Speaker 2: of those things, one of those things that remind us
Speaker 2: how quickly something can happen, which could alter the future.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things that remind us to appreciate
Speaker 2: every moment, one of those things that changes us, one
Speaker 2: of those things we are thankful for because of the
Speaker 2: lessons learned. Motorcycle riding is by nature much riskier than
Speaker 2: riding in a car or truck. If you look at
Speaker 2: the statistics, it's well, you don't even want to know.
Speaker 2: It's a choice made with a known risk. We let
Speaker 2: our boys make that choice with that risk, I ride myself.
Speaker 2: Why would we do that? Would we rather our boys
Speaker 2: didn't engage in such an activity. It isn't that simple.
Speaker 2: A life lived without any risk is, well, it's not
Speaker 2: really living at all. We take a risk when we
Speaker 2: choose a college major in the face of uncertainty. We
Speaker 2: take a risk in participating in a sport when we
Speaker 2: may possibly be embarrassed by poor performance. We take a
Speaker 2: risk in choosing a life partner. We take a risk
Speaker 2: in changing jobs. We take a risk in buying a
Speaker 2: home and committing to pay a mortgage for the next
Speaker 2: thirty years. A life without any risk is a life
Speaker 2: of not moving forward, it's not really life at all.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are ways to reduce risk, and we
Speaker 2: do those things and with a passion. At some point
Speaker 2: there is a balancing of the passion to live and
Speaker 2: the passion to walk in caution and wisdom, and that's
Speaker 2: really part of the secret of life. People choose different
Speaker 2: ways to go about it. Maybe you lean on your
Speaker 2: faith in God, or maybe you lean on your faith
Speaker 2: in yourself. Personally, I've been disappointed in my own strength
Speaker 2: way too many times. At the risk of making you
Speaker 2: feel like I've tricked you into a discussion about God,
Speaker 2: I'll share this after we decide whether there is a
Speaker 2: God or not and who that God is comes. What
Speaker 2: I'd say is one of the most prevalent debates about faith.
Speaker 2: What does God do and what do I do? People
Speaker 2: fall all over the spectrum on this. It would take
Speaker 2: me volumes to try to communicate where I've landed personally,
Speaker 2: and honestly, who really cares what I've concluded. I'll just
Speaker 2: say this, I want my boys to walk in wisdom,
Speaker 2: to not be averse to taking a risk, and to
Speaker 2: trust God in the midst of doing that. Take a risk,
Speaker 2: ride safe, and live well.
Speaker 1: Take a risk, ride safe, and live well. Wisdom and
Speaker 1: all of those words. A special thanks to Monte Montgomery
Speaker 1: on the production of that piece, and to Brent Timmins
Speaker 1: for a short but profound story with some real, real
Speaker 1: life implications as it relates to all of us and
Speaker 1: our lives. And we'd love to hear stories from you
Speaker 1: about this space. We spend a lot of time talking
Speaker 1: about risk and risk taking. Our entrepreneur stories are nothing
Speaker 1: but risk stories. A lot of people think entrepreneurs love risk,
Speaker 1: but that's not quite right. What we've learned is that
Speaker 1: they love to manage risk and that a life without
Speaker 1: risk is not worth living, and so they manage risk
Speaker 1: better than most of us and live within the space
Speaker 1: of risk and real traumatic risk because it's how they're hardwired.
Speaker 1: You can't make an entrepreneur any more than you can
Speaker 1: make someone ride a motorcycle. It's risky business riding a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: I've done it for many years of my life, gave
Speaker 1: it up when I had kids, So I made a
Speaker 1: very different decision about risk than this family did about,
Speaker 1: for instance, riding a motorcycle. Then your risk stories, your
Speaker 1: failure stories, because we love both of those and what
Speaker 1: you learn from failure to our Americanstories dot com. That's
Speaker 1: Ouramerican Stories dot com. Brent Timmins story who listens to
Speaker 1: us in Connecticut on Spotify of all places here on
Speaker 1: our American Story Liehabib here, and I'd like to encourage
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